Poor Ellen did not heed the picturesque effect of all this,
yet the sweet influences of nature reached her, and softened
while they increased her sorrow. She felt her own heart sadly
out of tune with the peace and loveliness of all she saw. Her
eye sought those distant hills — how very far off they were!
and yet all that wide tract of country was but a little piece
of what lay between her and her mother. Her eye sought those
hills — but her mind overpassed them, and went far beyond,
over many such a tract, till it reached the loved one at last.
"But, oh! how much between! I cannot reach her — she cannot
reach me!" thought poor Ellen. Her eyes had been filling and
dropping tears for some time, but now came the rush of the
pent-up storm, and the floods of grief were kept back no
longer.
When once fairly excited, Ellen's passions were always
extreme. During the former peaceful and happy part of her
life, the occasions of such excitement had been very rare. Of
late, unhappily, they had occurred much oftener. Many were the
bitter fits of tears she had known within a few weeks. But now
it seemed as if all the scattered causes of sorrow that had
wrought those tears were gathered together, and pressing upon
her at once, and that the burden would crush her to the earth.
To the earth it brought her, literally. She slid from her seat
at first, and, embracing the stone on which she had sat, she
leaned her head there; but presently in her agony quitting her
hold of that, she cast herself down upon the moss, lying at
full length upon the cold ground, which seemed, to her
childish fancy the best friend she had left.
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